Take Two
by CEED
Summary: The Hogyoku desires survival above all else. In the end, it abandons Aizen and attaches itself to the largest source of power nearby. Ichigo is in for a wild ride. Time Travel AU


**A Shot in the Dark**

Bleach Time Travel AU, modeled after Hogyoku ex Machina and similar time travel fan fiction.

**Summary: **The Hogyoku forsakes and devours Aizen when it sees it's imminent destruction at the hand of Ichigo, and clings onto the shinigami representative, granting his wish in an effort to survive. The wish? That Aizen had never gotten as far as getting Urahara's Hogyoku.

-Prologue-

Black power flared around the dark figure in front of the creature Aizen had become, Kurosaki Ichigo had surpassed and broke through every limit that the manipulator had set before him in mere months, and now was going to destroy him.

The changed teen raised his right hand, a blade of energy so powerful that Aizen's eyes could not even fully comprehend it, remembering the words of Tensa Zangetsu as he said goodbye, and swung down, not even registering the betrayer's protests at being surpassed, and instead naming his final technique, "Mugetsu."

Within Aizen the Hogyoku shuddered in terror and, with its instinct to survive above all else, devoured it's host from the inside out, and used the energy of the attack against it to attach itself to the more powerful presence and grant his desire.

When the black energy of Mugetsu dissipated, neither combatant remained.

In the late hours of the evening, on a street empty but for the five souls illuminated by the white glow of the streetlights, Kuchiki Byakuya stood in front of a uniquely orange haired boy lying in a puddle of his own draining blood.

"This boy does closely resemble _him_." The noble remarked to his distressed adopted sister as if commenting on the weather.

At that moment, a hand gripped the bottom edge of his hakama, and Byakuya looked over his shoulder to see it was in fact the boy he had just felled looking up at him from his place on the ground.

"He's already dead," the boy said, voice rough with pain and effort, "He resembles that guy… don't be moving the conversation along without me!"

Rukia stirred with hope from her place being held against a light post, with the murmured beginning of the boy's name on her lips, but as soon as hope filled her, it was replaced with dread.

Byakuya's eyes narrowed dangerously at the boy, and his voice was forbidding as he imparted advice to the inexperienced human, "Let go."

"I can't hear you," the boy told him, "look at me when you talk."

"Oh," Byakuya turned, "I see you don't much want to keep that arm."

Seeing these events, and knowing what would happen if she continued to do nothing, Rukia ran, pushing passed Renji and kicking at the hand holding the hem of her brother's hakama, prepared to say anything she had to in order to make Ichigo back down, but as soon as her foot made contact she stumbled, the air leaving her in one sharp breath.

Something… something had just happened to her that she couldn't comprehend…

And that was when Ichigo screamed.

It was agonizing.

He couldn't even feel the wounds that had him on the ground in the first place.

A flood of memories and power accompanied the pain as his muscles ripped and repaired themselves again and again, bones and skin stretched, and his hair lengthened raggedly and darkened to ebony.

On the outside the other four occupants of the street were surprised and alarmed as they sensed the boy's power increase so rapidly that their bodies did not even have the opportunity to fall as the spiritual pressure became too much for each of them in turn to bear before it seemingly disappeared entirely.

Ichigo ended his pained scream with a gasp, and another, and another until he had gotten his breathing under control, and registered his changed surroundings and position. He registered that he was lying on a stretch of pavement that had all the marks of being a road, in a pool of what appeared to be blood. It was dark but for some flickering artificial light, when last he knew he had been in the middle of nowhere in broad daylight in the Sereitei.

Sereitei didn't have paved roads like this.

Next he registered that the grey armor-like bandages that had covered him moments before were gone from his face and the left half of his torso, and as he moved to get up his muscles screamed, and all parts of his body from his skin to his bones voiced their objection to the action, but Kurosaki Ichigo didn't get as far as he had by succumbing to pain, so he grunted, but continue to rise, first to his hands and knees, then to just his knees, swaying slightly before finding his balance.

What had happened…?

Then he noticed the zori in front of him, and he finally registered the reiatsu he had been sensing.

Craning his neck up from his kneeling position, his confused garnet eyes met the slate grey eyes of a stunned Kuchiki, "Byakuya?" he asked, his voice rough and throat dry as if he had been screaming, "Renji? Rukia? What…" he trailed off as he caught a glimpse of Ishida on the ground in a similar pool of blood to the one he had just been getting out of, and realized why the scene before him seemed so familiar.

He had been there before.

The Senkai Gate closed with a quiet click behind the returning trio of Captain, Vice-captain, and former shinigami, the last appearing in a white kimono, head bowed, thoughts unable to move away from the final scene of Ichigo lying in a pool of blood and looking at her with his confused, desperate honey brown eyes.

A pair of garnet eyes flashed through her mind, but it was gone as soon as it had come, leaving no recollection of it ever having been there.

In the rain falling on the town of Karakura three figures stood on the street, eyes all looking toward the spot where previously had been a Senkai Gate.

"You sure they won't remember Urahara-san?" asked the figure with long ragged black hair.

"Of course Kurosaki-san! The chances of success are one hundred percent!" the seedy shopkeeper stated, umbrella keeping the worst of the rain off of him.

"Kurosaki…" began the last figure, a teen with short dark hair and glasses, "what happened to you, and what is going on?"

Ichigo Kurosaki sighed, ruffling his hair in a habitual fashion that indicated to all who knew him a high level of stress.

"It's a long story, Ishida." Ichigo said, "The others should hear it as well though, and we need to figure out some way to…" he stopped, staring into space for a period then abruptly he turned to Urahara, "We need to be able to fool Aizen." he said gravely.

Ishida Uryu stared blankly at his formerly orange-haired class mate. _Who in the three worlds was Aizen?_

-End Prologue-

Okay, I don't usually post things unless they're completed… but that hasn't gotten me very far, so here this is!

...Ta Da…


End file.
